In the wake of the news.

Irish's Weis lets it rip but loses grip in Fiesta

TEMPE, Ariz. — Notre Dame now has lost eight bowl games in a row. Charlie Weis didn't have a thing to do with the previous seven, but he does have to answer for this one.

The rookie head coach performed miracles (of the football variety) with the Fighting Irish this season. He was not at his best, however, in Monday's 34-20 loss to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, which was the first defeat for a Weis team away from South Bend.

Notre Dame gave up a 56-yard pass, a 68-yard run, an 85-yard pass and a 60-yard run--all for touchdowns--to Ohio State, which won the Fiesta Bowl for the third time in four years.

A coach's preparation is a key to any big game, so if Weis is to be given credit for the Irish's many successes, he also must be accountable for their glaring gaps and lapses this time.

His team gave up a whopping 617 yards of offense, including big play after big play with no Notre Dame tackler anywhere near a Buckeye.

"They'd go down the sideline and we wouldn't even be close to them in our coverage," Weis said. "When you give up that many big plays, that's what pis . . . I mean, disappoints you the most."

A baffling call by Weis also cost Notre Dame dearly in the opening quarter of the game.

He made a decision to pass up a chip-shot field goal that would have put the Irish on top 10-7 at a time when this game was not being dominated by either side. Instead, the coach had Notre Dame go for a first down on fourth-and-2 from the Ohio State 6.

Quarterback Brady Quinn was smothered for an 8-yard loss. He was sacked on the play by Buckeyes linebacker A.J. Hawk, the player who is dating Quinn's older sister, Laura.

Laura Quinn said on TV that she came to the game in a half-Irish, half-Buckeyes jersey intending to be "even-keeled," but her big-sister feelings for Brady kicked in at the moment he was tackled by Hawk.

She could be seen clapping for Quinn on the first possession of the game, when he came out firing. Weis had promised to "let it rip" in this game and he delivered on that, Quinn lobbing a bomb to Jeff Samardzija on the game's first play that fell inches from the receiver's fingertips.

The first touchdown came easily to the Irish. A 25-yard pass to Maurice Stovall was followed by a 20-yard scoring run by Darius Walker.

Perhaps that was why Weis went against all logic by bypassing that sure field goal. He seemed to come into this game believing Notre Dame could advance the ball whenever necessary, or at the very least that the Irish would err on the side of aggression rather than be too passive.

"I'm not big on second-guessing myself," Weis said. "It's easy in hindsight to say, `Hey, take the points.' But we planned on going into the game and taking a lot of chances. The team understood the risk, because I explained it to them."

Trouble with that is, this was an Ohio State team known for its defense. It gave up only seven points to high-scoring Northwestern, for example. So it did seem unwise for Weis to not put a sure three points on the board when he could.

Ohio State (10-2) was a team so strong, Texas and Penn State were the only ones able to defeat Jim Tressel's fourth-ranked Buckeyes all season.

"I've been hearing a lot about, `How are you going to beat a Notre Dame team when you give Charlie Weis four weeks to prepare for you?"' Hawk said with an obvious sense of self-satisfaction after making a team-high nine tackles. "What about giving Coach Tressel four weeks to prepare for you? That's the point I think more people should have been making, if you ask me."

Indeed, if quarterbacks such as Matt Leinart, Vince Young and Quinn are considered college football's cream of the crop, Troy Smith of the Buckeyes demonstrated that more people should have been talking about him.

He played a remarkably good game, passing for 342 yards, rushing for 66 and establishing a Fiesta Bowl record for longest touchdown pass with his 85-yard connection to Santonio Holmes, breaking a record previously held by Joey Harrington.

No Notre Dame team ever had given up a pass in a bowl game as long as this one.

Most dazzling of all were the hookups between Smith and Ted Ginn Jr., who once played together for a Cleveland high school team--the Glenville Tarblooders--coached by Ginn's father. At times, it appeared Notre Dame's defense didn't have a clue where to find Ginn, he was so astonishingly wide open.

Ohio State generously tried to keep the Irish in the game, losing a pair of fumbles and getting two field goals blocked.

On another play, a fumble by Anthony Gonzalez was picked up by Notre Dame defensive back Tom Zbikowski and returned 89 yards for a touchdown ... only to have the play reviewed and ruled an incomplete pass.

Had it counted, that score would have cut Ohio State's lead to 21-20 in the third quarter or even resulted in a 21-all tie, had Weis chosen to go for a two-point conversion. Weis wasn't having any of that.

"There's no need to make any second-guesses," Weis said, "because [the Buckeyes] definitely were the better team."

Not going into the game they weren't. Both teams were 9-2, and Notre Dame had come within a play of upsetting No. 1-ranked USC.

Weis' first season at Notre Dame was a wildly successful one. Next season opens at Georgia Tech, but where his players go from this last loss remains to be seen.

"There's two ways you can go after a loss," Weis said. "One way is to sit there and feel sorry for yourselves. Or you can take that bitter taste in your mouth and say, `I don't want to have this bitter taste again a year from now.'

"It's one or the other, black or white, either or. Which way do you want to go? I told my players they can count on me. I'll always be there for them. But they're the ones who have to make that decision because ultimately it comes down to the players. They know how bad this feels."

This was not his players' best game of the season. And it definitely wasn't his.